As an Army Officer I played a direct part in the saving of a few more lives.
Firstly, a soldier who collapsed and shut down in my platoon office in Edinburgh. He very quickly lost all life signs. My platoon sergeant and I managed to keep him alive with CPR until the ambulance was able to take him away. He survived.
Secondly, an educationally disadvantaged woman who tried to take her own life in the Swaledale river. As part of the Swaledale fell rescue team we found her, rescued her and kept her alive for the ambulance crew to take away. She survived.
Thirdly, while on an adventure training expedition to climb the Corsican mountains, we were caught in the greatest dump of snow in May that they had experienced in living memory. In that white out, we found a woman abandoned by her walking partner to die on the mountain. It took three days to get her off the mountain into medical care but we managed to keep her alive and hand her over into care before heading back up to complete our expedition. She survived.
Fourthly, During my final operational tour I was seconded to the brilliant Second Marine Expeditionary Force (IIMEF) United States Marine Corps (USMC) as the General Officer Commanding’s (GOC) advisor in Key Leader Engagement (KLE) as they prepared to retake Northern Helmand and Nimroz provinces, lost to the Taleban by the Afghan Army. My leaving brief from a British General was to stop the Marines from blowing everything up. To try to limit the damage to the good done by the Brits in our ten years of operations in Northern Helmand before handing it to the Afghans. During this tour I was thrown out of a few offices belonging to USMC full colonels, but, supported and guided by another United States Marine Corps Officer, a major who was a specialist in influence operations, who came up with a brilliant deception plan and is probably the most intelligent man I have ever known, as well as the wonderfully patient and extremely wise Pashtun Afghan cultural advisor to the USMC, and a senior intelligence officer of the Royal Air Force, who heard about my crazy idea away in the British Camp, Camp Bastion, and came across to the US camp, Camp Leatherneck, specifically to support it – I, and my plan, with the deception plan included, eventually won the trust of the brilliant GOC to try to retake these provinces through influence and KLE first – selling the deception plan to the Taliban leadership through those that influenced them – their fathers, uncles and brothers. After a five-month influence and KLE campaign, on the day that the fighting brigade of the United States Marine Corps, supported by a British fighting brigade, launched across the line of departure in an advance to contact, we realised the unthinkable – the Taliban had bought into our deception plan. We retook Northern Helmand with only one shot, an accidental discharge by a US Marine, fired. On the way to launching the influence campaign, I had stood at the loading ramp of their enormous cargo planes, with a team of US Marines saluting as coffin after coffin with the stars and stripes draped over the top were loaded on to the plane to be taken home. The Second Marine Expeditionary Force (IIMEF) USMC was fighting hard and valiantly to hold the ground we did have, and these nightly vigils to these brave marines were the driver behind my determined efforts and – after the United States Marine Corps had brilliantly and silently retaken Northern Helmand – the numbers of vigils needed dropped significantly. American, British and Afghan lives were saved by being ready for, but avoiding, combat and still the Marines’ mission was achieved. To know that I had a huge part in delivering that effect and so saving countless lives was a great feeling, even better than the public display of gratitude as the GOC awarded me with his certificate of commendation right there in his briefing room in Afghanistan. As he did so, in his speech, he likened my energy and commitment levels to that of the US commander Afghanistan, General David Petraeus. He then presented me with the stars and stripes that flew over the HQ the day we made the seemingly impossible possible and achieved operational success without further loss of life. I was awarded a certificate of commendation from the Commander of UK Operations in the Queen’s birthday honours list shortly after.
The wonderful feeling that washes over me after the initial recovery from the tremors, feeling cold and chronic fatigue as I came down from the adrenaline rush, and the funny sort of disorientating disbelief over what has just happened, is a sensation that flushes warm through the body and mind. Each life saved gave me a belief that, despite my frailties and failings as a child, I was here with a purpose, that I had something to offer, though I knew not what it was.
Post diagnosis and after deep thought and advice from an old friend from the regiment, I realised that I could use my health condition to help save the lives of many more people through fundraising.
I started fundraising for five charities simultaneously, the British Red Cross, Cancer Research UK, Help For Heroes, The Prince’s Trust and the World Wide Fund for Nature. I was asking anybody who would listen to challenge me to beat my beast of a brain tumour with their sponsorship. This turned out to have a great effect for my son as he arrived in High School as a new boy. Some of the older boys I had coached in rugby or the Scouts were coming to my son, giving him a pretend dead arm or putting him in a friendly neck lock and telling him, “Tell your Dad I think he’s great. I’ve sponsored him. Suddenly my squit new boy of a son was somebody in High School. Please read on to learn more .